Pacelli explains to the Vatican his reasons for leaving Munich for 10 weeks in late 1918 and early 1919, enclosing a supporting declaration by Cardinal Faulhaber - July 10, 1921
Source: Timeline
July 10, 1921 Pacelli explains to the Vatican his reasons for leaving Munich for 10 weeks in late 1918 and early 1919, enclosing a supporting declaration by Cardinal Faulhaber.
English translation
July 10, 1921 Pacelli to Pizzardo:
Re: His Eminence Cardinal Faulhaber and my trip to Switzerland of November 1918
His Eminence Signor Cardinal Faulhaber, Archbishop of Munich, during his last stay in Rome to attend the Sacred Consistory, had occasion to hear some echoes of rumors, “contrary to truth,” as he expresses it, already circulating about my trip to Switzerland in the wake of November 1918, a trip I carried out in full conformity with the instructions imparted to me by His Eminence my Superior in encrypted cable No. 154 of the 13th of that same month. Returning to Munich, the aforesaid Cardinal Faulhaber, who “saw up close the singular events of that time,” wanted to put down in a written exposition, to be preserved in the Archive of this Nunciature, the truthful account of the selfsame events, of which he was an eyewitness. Of this his Expository Account, to which the greatness of his Authority gives particular importance, he delivered me three copies, all of them signed by him, and I allow myself to send one herewith enclosed to Your Reverend Excellency with the request to please arrange that it be included in the appropriate Files existing in the appropriate Archives of the Secretariat of State.
Eminence Faulhaber begins in the above-mentioned Expository Account by describing “the revolutionary terror, which, in those days of extreme tension and unending agitations, took on an ever more menacing aspect against the Church.” In this situation, he maintained that “the representative of the Holy Father had to not be exposed to the peril of maltreatment and outrages,” and it was therefore that on November 14 (since, in the execution of the order given me by His Eminence my Superior in the above-cited encrypted cable No. 154, I went to him to take counsel) he came back again to exhort me to leave Munich and go to Switzerland, indicating particularly Rorschach (or Menzingen) to me as a suitable place for my temporary stay. But that was not the only reason that led him to give me this counsel. The Hebrew Kurt Eisner, - remembers the same Eminence - “to consolidate his still uncertain position, changed tactics, and on November 20th tried by means of State Councilor von Lössl to enter into diplomatic relations with Archbishop Monsignor Pacelli, thus to give to the eyes of the Catholic population the appearance that the Apostolic Nuncio had recognized his government and legitimized the revolution. ” Cardinal Faulhaber states that “in those days a meeting of the Nuncio with Minister President Eisner could not have taken place without completely upsetting the mind of the people and that as a result “the Nuncio had to go away from Munich, in order to avoid any occasion of encountering Eisner.” Then, when Auditor Schioppa on the following January 18, 1919 asked him (at my instance) whether, in his opinion, the Nuncio could now return to Munich, he replied that “in the current state of things, Minister President Eisner would have sought anew to enter into official relations with Nuncio Pacelli, and the Bavarian Bishops would have seen in that a recognition of the revolutionary Government and a scandal for the entire Land … For the political-religious situation in Bavaria it would also have been fatal to have the simple appearance of official relations between the Foreign Ministry and the Nunciature.”
... Eminence Faulhaber recalls in this regard the aggression by armed force against the Nunciature and my own person on the 29th of the same month of April and adds (if I may be permitted, despite the tenor of his words, to quote them verbatim): “In an energetic and dignified way, the Nuncio protested against this violation of international law and gave proof of his personal intrepidity, of which only those could give an exact impression who personally experienced those days of most brutal abuse and most cruel terror, not indeed in other countries and tranquil times.” And finally, following other similar considerations, he concludes: “The entire Bavarian Episcopate is with me in agreeing that the conduct of our most venerated Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Monsignor Pacelli was solely guided by the highest ecclesiastical viewpoints.”
After this, with sentiments of profound obsequy …
Source: www.Pacelli-Edition.de, Document No. 4417.